There is a story told in Spain about a girl who used to go into the forest to collect firewood.
By chance on day she pulled out of the earth a sprig of rosemary,
and as she did so, a handsome prince appeared before her enraptured gaze.
He in turn was so captivated by the girl's vivid beauty that,
unwilling to let her out of his sight, he took her by the hand and led her
unresisting to his palace, which lay in a valley below the forest. There, within its pillared walls,
he scarcely needed to woo his new-found love before winning her heart
orever as his chosen bride.
Now the prince was, unbeknownst to the girl, under the malicious spell of a wicked witch,
and he earnestly cautioned his young wife that she could go anywhere
she wished in the palace and open all the doors save one. The girl accepted thid
without question at the start. Radiantly happy as she was, she would have
consented to anything her prince asked her. And thus for a while they lived
happily together.
At length, however, the girl found herself increasingly tantalized each time
she passed that one room closed to her. Eventually she became so consumed with curiosity
that one morning when her husband was out hawking, nothing could stop her
having a peep at what lay behind the forbidden door.
No sooner had she turned the key in the lock than there was a shaking and a roaring
around her, and the entire palace became earth and disappeared.
The girl stood alone in the forest again, and shed bitter tears at the loss of her husband.
She decided to travel the world over to find him.
She went up to the sun, whose light shines on every place, to ask him if he had seen the prince,
but the sun had not. She climbed to the moon, who sees the secrets of the world while people are asleep, and asked her
if she had seen the prince, but the moon had not.
Finally she went to the wind, who flies everywhere and sees everything, and the wind replied as he whistled softly about her,"Yes I have seen him.
He is the prisoner of a cruel king and is to marry his ugly daughter this very day.
The prince is under a spell, and all memory of his love for you ha vanished."
finally she went to the wind, who flies everwhere and sees everything, and the wind replied as he whistled softly about her, "Yes I have seen him.
He is the prisoner of a cruel king and is to marry his ugly daughter this very day.
The prince is under a spell, and all memory of his love for you has vanished."
Then the wind wrapped the girl in his cloak and carried her to the country where her lover lay imprisoned. She stood in the courtyard of the king's palace and saw all the preparations being made for the wedding. In her despair she picked anothe sprig of rosemary from the king's herb garden and held it against her heart. Just then the prince came by on his way to meet his new bride. She touched him with the rosemary and he remembered her, and the spell was broken. The prince kissed her and declared that she, and none other, was his true wife. Together they left the king's castle, and lived happily together all the days of their lives.